January 20, 2013

KOLKATA: Even Prakash Karat didn't expect it so
early. Getting a whiff of the rising anti-incumbency in Bengal, the CPM general
secretary on Saturday cited instances to showcase what he called Mamata
Banerjee's poor governance.

"The state has witnessed a number of farmer
suicides, hunger deaths, denial of pension to state transport employees, and
above all the intra-Trinamool feuds. I think people have have realised what
harm they have done to the state by voting this kind of a party," Karat
said at the end of the three-day CPM central committee meeting.

Expressing concern over the continuing violence
in Bengal, he said: "There is no let up in the violence unleashed on Left
activists. As many as 85 CPM men have been killed since the assembly elections.
Protests have been met with bullets, bombs and lathis - the latest being the
attack on Abdur Rezzak Mollah. The Trinamool government is patronising all
this, though more people are coming out against the terror."

Karat also broadly endorsed the Bengal CPM's
land policy, saying that the government should have a role in accumulating big
patches of land. However, he had a rider about the proposed compensation and
rehabilitation package: "We believe that the government should acquire the
land only after 80% of landowners give consent. And, the compensation and
rehabilitation should stand integral to the new land bill. We are not in favour
of making exceptions for certain sectors such as railways or mining."

Digressing from the projected correlation of
political forces into two camps - secular and communal - as the Congress and
its allies, particularly RJD chief Lalu Prasad, have been preaching, Karat
preferred to stick to the formulation of the Coimbatore Party Congress that
calls for fighting the Congress and the BJP as well.

"We will work for the defeat of the
Congress and keep the BJP at bay. We have decided to float policy alternatives
instead on food security, hike of railway fares, deregulation of diesel prices
and the proposed dismantling of the drug control authority that will burden the
common people," Karat said. He also ruled out chances of a Third Front.

Claiming that the Mamata Banerjee government had failed on all fronts, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday said that the people of West Bengal must have realised now what harm has been done by voting into office such a party. “This government has failed on all fronts.

The CPI(M) leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Sitaram Yechury, who is also the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture that deals with civil aviation, has been invited to the event but his name does not figure among those shortlisted to be on the dais. President Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the facility in the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and others.READ MORE IN:Sorry, Yechury, you ain’t dais-class